The history of human growth and development is at
the same time the history of the terrible struggle of every new idea heralding the
approach of a brighter dawn. In its tenacious hold on tradition, the Old has never
hesitated to make use of the foulest and cruelest means to stay the advent of the New, in
whatever form or period the latter may have asserted itself. Nor need we retrace our steps
into the distant past to realize the enormity of opposition, difficulties, and hardships
placed in the path of every progressive idea. The rack, the thumbscrew, and the knout are
still with us; so are the convict's garb and the social wrath, all conspiring against the
spirit that is serenely marching on.

Anarchism could not hope to escape the fate of
all other ideas of innovation. Indeed, as the most revolutionary and uncompromising
innovator, Anarchism must needs meet with the combined ignorance and venom of the world it
aims to reconstruct.

To deal even remotely with all that is being said
and done against Anarchism would necessitate the writing of a whole volume. I shall
therefore meet only two of the principal objections. In so doing, I shall attempt to
elucidate what Anarchism really stands for.

The strange phenomenon of the opposition to
Anarchism is that it brings to light the relation between so-called intelligence and
ignorance. And yet this is not so very strange when we consider the relativity of all
things. The ignorant mass has in its favor that it makes no pretense of knowledge or
tolerance. Acting, as it always does, by mere impulse, its reasons are like those of a
child. "Why?": "Because." Yet the opposition of the uneducated to
Anarchism deserves the same consideration as that of the intelligent man.

What, then, are the objections? First, Anarchism
is impractical, though a beautiful ideal. Second, Anarchism stands for violence and
destruction, hence it must be repudiated as vile and dangerous. Both the intelligent man
and the ignorant mass judge not from a thorough knowledge of the subject, but either from
hearsay or false interpretation.

A practical scheme, says Oscar Wilde, is either
one already in existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under the existing
conditions; but it is exactly the existing conditions that one objects to, and any scheme
that could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish. The true criterion of the
practical, therefore, is not whether the latter can keep intact the wrong or foolish;
rather is it whether the scheme has vitality enough to leave the stagnant waters of the
old, and build, as well as sustain, new life. In the light of this conception, Anarchism
is indeed practical. More than any other idea, it is helping to do away with the wrong and
foolish; more than any other idea, it is building and sustaining new life.

The emotions of the ignorant man are continuously
kept at a pitch by the most blood-curdling stories about Anarchism. Not a thing too
outrageous to be employed against this philosophy and its exponents. Therefore Anarchism
represents to the unthinking what the proverbial bad man does to the child,--a black
monster bent on swallowing everything; in short, destruction and violence.

Destruction and violence! How is the ordinary man
to know that the most violent element in society is ignorance; that its power of
destruction is the very thing Anarchism is combating? Nor is he aware that Anarchism,
whose roots, as it were, are part of nature's forces, destroys, not healthful tissue, but
parasitic growths that feed on the life's essence of society. It is merely clearing the
soil from weeds and sagebrush, that it may eventually bear healthy fruit.

Someone has said that it requires less mental
effort to condemn than to think. The widespread mental indolence, so prevalent in society,
proves this to be only too true. Rather than to go to the bottom of any given idea, to
examine into its origin and meaning, most people will either condemn it altogether, or
rely on some superficial or prejudicial definition of non-essentials.

Anarchism urges man to think, to investigate, to
analyze every proposition; but that the brain capacity of the average reader be not taxed
too much, I also shall begin with a definition, and then elaborate on the latter.

ANARCHISM:--The philosophy of a new social order
based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government
rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary.

The new social order rests, of course, on the
materialistic basis of life; but while all Anarchists agree that the main evil today is an
economic one, they maintain that the solution of that evil can be brought about only
through the consideration of every phase of life,--individual, as well as the
collective; the internal, as well as the external phases.

A thorough perusal of the history of human
development will disclose two elements in bitter conflict with each other; elements that
are only now beginning to be understood, not as foreign to each other, but as closely
related and truly harmonious, if only placed in proper environment: the individual and
social instincts. The individual and society have waged a relentless and bloody battle for
ages, each striving for supremacy, because each was blind to the value and importance of
the other. The individual and social instincts,--the one a most potent factor for
individual endeavor, for growth, aspiration, self-realization; the other an equally potent
factor for mutual helpfulness and social well-being.

The explanation of the storm raging within the
individual, and between him and his surroundings, is not far to seek. The primitive man,
unable to understand his being, much less the unity of all life, felt himself absolutely
dependent on blind, hidden forces ever ready to mock and taunt him. Out of that attitude
grew the religious concepts of man as a mere speck of dust dependent on superior powers on
high, who can only be appeased by complete surrender. All the early sagas rest on that
idea, which continues to be the Leitmotiv of the biblical tales dealing with the
relation of man to God, to the State, to society. Again and again the same motif, man
is nothing, the powers are everything. Thus Jehovah would only endure man on condition
of complete surrender. Man can have all the glories of the earth, but he must not become
conscious of himself. The State, society, and moral laws all sing the same refrain: Man
can have all the glories of the earth, but he must not become conscious of himself.

Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to
man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and society are
non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only
through man's subordination. Anarchism is therefore the teacher of the unity of life; not
merely in nature, but in man. There is no conflict between the individual and the social
instincts, any more than there is between the heart and the lungs: the one the receptacle
of a precious life essence, the other the repository of the element that keeps the essence
pure and strong. The individual is the heart of society, conserving the essence of social
life; society is the lungs which are distributing the element to keep the life
essence--that is, the individual--pure and strong.

"The one thing of value in the world,"
says Emerson, "is the active soul; this every man contains within him. The soul
active sees absolute truth and utters truth and creates." In other words, the
individual instinct is the thing of value in the world. It is the true soul that sees and
creates the truth alive, out of which is to come a still greater truth, the re-born social
soul.

Anarchism is the great liberator of man from the
phantoms that have held him captive; it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces for
individual and social harmony. To accomplish that unity, Anarchism has declared war on the
pernicious influences which have so far prevented the harmonious blending of individual
and social instincts, the individual and society.

Religion, the dominion of the human mind;
Property, the dominion of human needs; and Government, the dominion of human conduct,
represent the stronghold of man's enslavement and all the horrors it entails. Religion!
How it dominates man's mind, how it humiliates and degrades his soul. God is everything,
man is nothing, says religion. But out of that nothing God has created a kingdom so
despotic, so tyrannical, so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and tears
and blood have ruled the world since gods began. Anarchism rouses man to rebellion against
this black monster. Break your mental fetters, says Anarchism to man, for not until you
think and judge for yourself will you get rid of the dominion of darkness, the greatest
obstacle to all progress.

Property, the dominion of man's needs, the denial
of the right to satisfy his needs. Time was when property claimed a divine right, when it
came to man with the same refrain, even as religion, "Sacrifice! Abnegate!
Submit!" The spirit of Anarchism has lifted man from his prostrate position. He now
stands erect, with his face toward the light. He has learned to see the insatiable,
devouring, devastating nature of property, and he is preparing to strike the monster dead.

"Property is robbery," said the great
French Anarchist Proudhon. Yes, but without risk and danger to the robber. Monopolizing
the accumulated efforts of man, property has robbed him of his birthright, and has turned
him loose a pauper and an outcast. Property has not even the time-worn excuse that man
does not create enough to satisfy all needs. The A B C student of economics knows that the
productivity of labor within the last few decades far exceeds normal demand. But what are
normal demands to an abnormal institution? The only demand that property recognizes is its
own gluttonous appetite for greater wealth, because wealth means power; the power to
subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade. America is
particularly boastful of her great power, her enormous national wealth. Poor America, of
what avail is all her wealth, if the individuals comprising the nation are wretchedly
poor? If they live in squalor, in filth, in crime, with hope and joy gone, a homeless,
soilless army of human prey.

It is generally conceded that unless the returns
of any business venture exceed the cost, bankruptcy is inevitable. But those engaged in
the business of producing wealth have not yet learned even this simple lesson. Every year
the cost of production in human life is growing larger (50,000 killed, 100,000 wounded in
America last year); the returns to the masses, who help to create wealth, are ever getting
smaller. Yet America continues to be blind to the inevitable bankruptcy of our business of
production. Nor is this the only crime of the latter. Still more fatal is the crime of
turning the producer into a mere particle of a machine, with less will and decision than
his master of steel and iron. Man is being robbed not merely of the products of his labor,
but of the power of free initiative, of originality, and the interest in, or desire for,
the things he is making.

Real wealth consists in things of utility and
beauty, in things that help to create strong, beautiful bodies and surroundings inspiring
to live in. But if man is doomed to wind cotton around a spool, or dig coal, or build
roads for thirty years of his life, there can be no talk of wealth. What he gives to the
world is only gray and hideous things, reflecting a dull and hideous existence,--too weak
to live, too cowardly to die. Strange to say, there are people who extol this deadening
method of centralized production as the proudest achievement of our age. They fail utterly
to realize that if we are to continue in machine subserviency, our slavery is more
complete than was our bondage to the King. They do not want to know that centralization is
not only the death-knell of liberty, but also of health and beauty, of art and science,
all these being impossible in a clock-like, mechanical atmosphere.

Anarchism cannot but repudiate such a method of
production: its goal is the freest possible expression of all the latent powers of the
individual. Oscar Wilde defines a perfect personality as "one who develops under
perfect conditions, who is not wounded, maimed, or in danger." A perfect personality,
then, is only possible in a state of society where man is free to choose the mode of work,
the conditions of work, and the freedom to work. One to whom the making of a table, the
building of a house, or the tilling of the soil, is what the painting is to the artist and
the discovery to the scientist,--the result of inspiration, of intense longing, and deep
interest in work as a creative force. That being the ideal of Anarchism, its economic
arrangements must consist of voluntary productive and distributive associations, gradually
developing into free communism, as the best means of producing with the least waste of
human energy. Anarchism, however, also recognizes the right of the individual, or numbers
of individuals, to arrange at all times for other forms of work, in harmony with their
tastes and desires.

Such free display of human energy being possible
only under complete individual and social freedom, Anarchism directs its forces against
the third and greatest foe of all social equality; namely, the State, organized authority,
or statutory law,--the dominion of human conduct.

Just as religion has fettered the human mind, and
as property, or the monopoly of things, has subdued and stifled man's needs, so has the
State enslaved his spirit, dictating every phase of conduct. "All government in
essence," says Emerson, "is tyranny." It matters not whether it is
government by divine right or majority rule. In every instance its aim is the absolute
subordination of the individual.

Referring to the American government, the
greatest American Anarchist, David Thoreau, said: "Government, what is it but a
tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity,
but each instance losing its integrity; it has not the vitality and force of a single
living man. Law never made man a whit more just; and by means of their respect for it,
even the well disposed are daily made agents of injustice."

Indeed, the keynote of government is injustice.
With the arrogance and self-sufficiency of the King who could do no wrong, governments
ordain, judge, condemn, and punish the most insignificant offenses, while maintaining
themselves by the greatest of all offenses, the annihilation of individual liberty. Thus
Ouida is right when she maintains that "the State only aims at instilling those
qualities in its public by which its demands are obeyed, and its exchequer is filled. Its
highest attainment is the reduction of mankind to clockwork. In its atmosphere all those
finer and more delicate liberties, which require treatment and spacious expansion,
inevitably dry up and perish. The State requires a taxpaying machine in which there is no
hitch, an exchequer in which there is never a deficit, and a public, monotonous, obedient,
colorless, spiritless, moving humbly like a flock of sheep along a straight high road
between two walls."

Yet even a flock of sheep would resist the
chicanery of the State, if it were not for the corruptive, tyrannical, and oppressive
methods it employs to serve its purposes. Therefore Bakunin repudiates the State as
synonymous with the surrender of the liberty of the individual or small minorities,--the
destruction of social relationship, the curtailment, or complete denial even, of life
itself, for its own aggrandizement. The State is the altar of political freedom and, like
the religious altar, it is maintained for the purpose of human sacrifice.

In fact, there is hardly a modern thinker
who does not agree that government, organized authority, or the State, is necessary only
to maintain or protect property and monopoly. It has proven efficient in that function
only.

Even George Bernard Shaw, who hopes for the
miraculous from the State under Fabianism, nevertheless admits that "it is at present
a huge machine for robbing and slave-driving of the poor by brute force." This being
the case, it is hard to see why the clever prefacer wishes to uphold the State after
poverty shall have ceased to exist.

Unfortunately, there are still a number of people
who continue in the fatal belief that government rests on natural laws, that it maintains
social order and harmony, that it diminishes crime, and that it prevents the lazy man from
fleecing his fellows. I shall therefore examine these contentions.

A natural law is that factor in man which asserts
itself freely and spontaneously without any external force, in harmony with the
requirements of nature. For instance, the demand for nutrition, for sex gratification, for
light, air, and exercise, is a natural law. But its expression needs not the machinery of
government, needs not the club, the gun, the handcuff, or the prison. To obey such laws,
if we may call it obedience, requires only spontaneity and free opportunity. That
governments do not maintain themselves through such harmonious factors is proven by the
terrible array of violence, force, and coercion all governments use in order to live. Thus
Blackstone is right when he says, "Human laws are invalid, because they are contrary
to the laws of nature."

Unless it be the order of Warsaw after the
slaughter of thousands of people, it is difficult to ascribe to governments any capacity
for order or social harmony. Order derived through submission and maintained by terror is
not much of a safe guaranty; yet that is the only "order" that governments have
ever maintained. True social harmony grows naturally out of solidarity of interests. In a
society where those who always work never have anything, while those who never work enjoy
everything, solidarity of interests is non-existent; hence social harmony is but a myth.
The only way organized authority meets this grave situation is by extending still greater
privileges to those who have already monopolized the earth, and by still further enslaving
the disinherited masses. Thus the entire arsenal of government--laws, police, soldiers,
the courts, legislatures, prisons,--is strenuously engaged in "harmonizing" the
most antagonistic elements in society.

The most absurd apology for authority and law is
that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the
greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes,
killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill
in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible
scourge of its own creation.

Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long
as every institution of today, economic, political, social, and moral, conspires to
misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people are out of place doing
the things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to live, crime will be inevitable,
and all the laws on the statutes can only increase, but never do away with, crime. What
does society, as it exists today, know of the process of despair, the poverty, the
horrors, the fearful struggle the human soul must pass on its way to crime and
degradation. Who that knows this terrible process can fail to see the truth in these words
of Peter Kropotkin:

"Those who will hold the balance between
the benefits thus attributed to law and punishment and the degrading effect of the latter
on humanity; those who will estimate the torrent of depravity poured abroad in human
society by the informer, favored by the Judge even, and paid for in clinking cash by
governments, under the pretext of aiding to unmask crime; those who will go within prison
walls and there see what human beings become when deprived of liberty, when subjected to
the care of brutal keepers, to coarse, cruel words, to a thousand stinging, piercing
humiliations, will agree with us that the entire apparatus of prison and punishment is an
abomination which ought to be brought to an end."

The deterrent influence of law on the lazy man is
too absurd to merit consideration. If society were only relieved of the waste and expense
of keeping a lazy class, and the equally great expense of the paraphernalia of protection
this lazy class requires, the social tables would contain an abundance for all, including
even the occasional lazy individual. Besides, it is well to consider that laziness results
either from special privileges, or physical and mental abnormalities. Our present insane
system of production fosters both, and the most astounding phenomenon is that people
should want to work at all now. Anarchism aims to strip labor of its deadening, dulling
aspect, of its gloom and compulsion. It aims to make work an instrument of joy, of
strength, of color, of real harmony, so that the poorest sort of a man should find in work
both recreation and hope.

To achieve such an arrangement of life,
government, with its unjust, arbitrary, repressive measures, must be done away with. At
best it has but imposed one single mode of life upon all, without regard to individual and
social variations and needs. In destroying government and statutory laws, Anarchism
proposes to rescue the self-respect and independence of the individual from all restraint
and invasion by authority. Only in freedom can man grow to his full stature. Only in
freedom will he learn to think and move, and give the very best in him. Only in freedom
will he realize the true force of the social bonds which knit men together, and which are
the true foundation of a normal social life.

But what about human nature? Can it be changed?
And if not, will it endure under Anarchism?

Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been
committed in thy name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson to
the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The
greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and
weaknesses of human nature. Yet, how can any one speak of it today, with every soul in a
prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed?

John Burroughs has stated that experimental study
of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their
appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest.
With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak
of its potentialities?

Freedom, expansion, opportunity, and, above all,
peace and repose, alone can teach us the real dominant factors of human nature and all its
wonderful possibilities.

Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation
of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the
dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism
stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of
producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free
access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual
desires, tastes, and inclinations.

This is not a wild fancy or an aberration of the
mind. It is the conclusion arrived at by hosts of intellectual men and women the world
over; a conclusion resulting from the close and studious observation of the tendencies of
modern society: individual liberty and economic equality, the twin forces for the birth of
what is fine and true in man.

As to methods. Anarchism is not, as some may
suppose, a theory of the future to be realized through divine inspiration. It is a living
force in the affairs of our life, constantly creating new conditions. The methods of
Anarchism therefore do not comprise an iron-clad program to be carried out under all
circumstances. Methods must grow out of the economic needs of each place and clime, and of
the intellectual and temperamental requirements of the individual. The serene, calm
character of a Tolstoy will wish different methods for social reconstruction than the
intense, overflowing personality of a Michael Bakunin or a Peter Kropotkin. Equally so it
must be apparent that the economic and political needs of Russia will dictate more drastic
measures than would England or America. Anarchism does not stand for military drill and
uniformity; it does, however, stand for the spirit of revolt, in whatever form, against
everything that hinders human growth. All Anarchists agree in that, as they also agree in
their opposition to the political machinery as a means of bringing about the great social
change.

"All voting," says Thoreau, "is a
sort of gaming, like checkers, or backgammon, a playing with right and wrong; its
obligation never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right thing is doing
nothing for it. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to
prevail through the power of the majority." A close examination of the machinery of
politics and its achievements will bear out the logic of Thoreau.

What does the history of parliamentarism show?
Nothing but failure and defeat, not even a single reform to ameliorate the economic and
social stress of the people. Laws have been passed and enactments made for the improvement
and protection of labor. Thus it was proven only last year that Illinois, with the most
rigid laws for mine protection, had the greatest mine disasters. In States where child
labor laws prevail, child exploitation is at its highest, and though with us the workers
enjoy full political opportunities, capitalism has reached the most brazen zenith.

Even were the workers able to have their own
representatives, for which our good Socialist politicians are clamoring, what chances are
there for their honesty and good faith? One has but to bear in mind the process of
politics to realize that its path of good intentions is full of pitfalls: wire-pulling,
intriguing, flattering, lying, cheating; in fact, chicanery of every description, whereby
the political aspirant can achieve success. Added to that is a complete demoralization of
character and conviction, until nothing is left that would make one hope for anything from
such a human derelict. Time and time again the people were foolish enough to trust,
believe, and support with their last farthing aspiring politicians, only to find
themselves betrayed and cheated.

It may be claimed that men of integrity would not
become corrupt in the political grinding mill. Perhaps not; but such men would be
absolutely helpless to exert the slightest influence in behalf of labor, as indeed has
been shown in numerous instances. The State is the economic master of its servants. Good
men, if such there be, would either remain true to their political faith and lose their
economic support, or they would cling to their economic master and be utterly unable to do
the slightest good. The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a
dunce or a rogue.

The political superstition is still holding sway
over the hearts and minds of the masses, but the true lovers of liberty will have no more
to do with it. Instead, they believe with Stirner that man has as much liberty as he is
willing to take. Anarchism therefore stands for direct action, the open defiance of, and
resistance to, all laws and restrictions, economic, social, and moral. But defiance and
resistance are illegal. Therein lies the salvation of man. Everything illegal necessitates
integrity, self-reliance, and courage. In short, it calls for free, independent spirits,
for "men who are men, and who have a bone in their backs which you cannot pass your
hand through."

Universal suffrage itself owes its existence to
direct action. If not for the spirit of rebellion, of the defiance on the part of the
American revolutionary fathers, their posterity would still wear the King's coat. If not
for the direct action of a John Brown and his comrades, America would still trade in the
flesh of the black man. True, the trade in white flesh is still going on; but that, too,
will have to be abolished by direct action. Trade-unionism, the economic arena of the
modern gladiator, owes its existence to direct action. It is but recently that law and
government have attempted to crush the trade-union movement, and condemned the exponents
of man's right to organize to prison as conspirators. Had they sought to assert their
cause through begging, pleading, and compromise, trade-unionism would today be a
negligible quantity. In France, in Spain, in Italy, in Russia, nay even in England
(witness the growing rebellion of English labor unions), direct, revolutionary, economic
action has become so strong a force in the battle for industrial liberty as to make the
world realize the tremendous importance of labor's power. The General Strike, the supreme
expression of the economic consciousness of the workers, was ridiculed in America but a
short time ago. Today every great strike, in order to win, must realize the importance of
the solidaric general protest.

Direct action, having proven effective along
economic lines, is equally potent in the environment of the individual. There a hundred
forces encroach upon his being, and only persistent resistance to them will finally set
him free. Direct action against the authority in the shop, direct action against the
authority of the law, direct action against the invasive, meddlesome authority of our
moral code, is the logical, consistent method of Anarchism.

Will it not lead to a revolution? Indeed, it
will. No real social change has ever come about without a revolution. People are either
not familiar with their history, or they have not yet learned that revolution is but
thought carried into action.

Anarchism, the great leaven of thought, is today
permeating every phase of human endeavor. Science, art, literature, the drama, the effort
for economic betterment, in fact every individual and social opposition to the existing
disorder of things, is illumined by the spiritual light of Anarchism. It is the philosophy
of the sovereignty of the individual. It is the theory of social harmony. It is the great,
surging, living truth that is reconstructing the world, and that will usher in the Dawn.